Wednesday, September 9, 2015

A Fairly Random and Tangential Post

Wayne Dyer died a few days a go. I think the last time I read Wayne Dyer was when I was 20 years old. I read The Erroneous Zones, I remember, on a gloomy San Francisco summer weekend, right after my semester at school had ended.

While I cannot say know most of his work, Wayne Dyer sounded like a man who "walked the walk." He seemed to live his life the way he wished to: being of service to others, staying true to his vision, and living passionately.

What is your vision for your life, and are you living it? Are you living with passion? Are you balancing living in the day while still attending to your vision of the future? Its a hard balance.

During this summer of enormous transitions, I have become again even more acutely aware of the importance of living authentically, with passion, in service, and respecting the shortness of this life. I am transitioning from raising a family and building a career, to building a life as a divorced man who lives by alone (well, there is my therapist and writing coach, of course!!).

I think of what I must do differently, today and this upcoming year, to live more authentically, to live more fully in accordance to what it means to be me.

The obvious, is write more. This has been my slowest writing period in perhaps two decades. It has been somewhat conscious, but it is time to get back to it. I have been working on a few narrative non fiction shorts, have broken out my novel, and have been tinkering with a couple of academic articles (autoethnographies). I am placing the finishing touches on two edited books on the criminalization of immigration, but that really is not writing.

The other "thing" that really has influence me a good deal this summer, strangely, is my new presence on twitter. I have mentioned this before, but I have become very attuned to how many young scholars are moving away from higher education, and the number of people around to help them do so. I worry for some of them. Not the ones that really wish to leave, but the ones whose visions of themselves are being morphed out of fear, and from daily participation in the culture of gloom and gloom. I mean this in all sincerity, this is not "Rich's coaching marketing speak." When you give up on your dreams too early, you risk a lifetime of regret. Yeah, dreams change. Yeah, realities hit hard. But give it your all.

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